Unitree’s 5,500-plus humanoid robot deliveries highlight China’s scale in humanoid robot manufacturing. Devere Group CEO Nigel Green says those exports offer investors an alternative to heavily financed U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Key Takeaways
Unitree delivered more than 5,500 humanoid robots during 2025.China’s robot exports face new U.S. restrictions and security scrutiny.Green contrasts overseas hardware orders with financed U.S. AI demand.Green contrasted China’s overseas hardware sales with vendor-supported revenue arrangements in the United States, saying:
“China’s export wave looks nothing like that. It is hardware shipped to real ports and installed on real factory floors overseas, demand that shows up in customs data rather than in vendor-financing footnotes.”
Available industry estimates put Tesla and Figure AI each at a few hundred humanoid robot shipments or less during 2025. Those figures make the direction of Unitree’s production advantage clearer than any unsupported company-by-company comparison built around an exact 150-unit estimate.
Beijing Conference Will Test Commercial DemandGreen linked China’s 2025 shipment totals with the industry’s broader manufacturing momentum before the Beijing event, saying:
“Volumes like that are the proof. An entire supply chain is moving up the value curve at a pace Western competitors are still underestimating, and this week in Beijing will show it in real time.”
Export Orders Contrasted With Wall Street FinancingThe planned Nvidia structure includes possible residual-value support covering as much as 25% of an individual financing opportunity. That mechanism differs from direct circular financing, yet it illustrates how chip suppliers, customers, and capital providers increasingly intersect as the AI buildout demands hundreds of billions of dollars for data centers and computing equipment.
The Devere executive warned that concentrated positions in American artificial intelligence companies carry financing risks that extend beyond operating performance, saying:
“Investors who have been sitting entirely inside the US AI complex are exposed to financing structures I have already flagged as fragile.”
He framed overseas order books as a diversification tool for investors concentrated in American artificial intelligence companies, saying: “Adding exposure tied to genuine overseas order books, across robotics, automation and industrial hardware, gives a portfolio real distance from that circularity. Every AI-heavy portfolio needs that distance before the next repricing arrives.”
